10 Practical Ways to Innovate in Any Classroom Inside Innovation

 I received a number of emails and questions about what types of “innovative work” I’ve seen in my role as a teacher, administrator, and speaker around the country. To be honest, there has been so much great work I’ve witnessed in my own district and traveling that it is hard to share it all. I’ve widdled it down to ten (because that seems like a solid number right?). These are some of the examples I share when doing workshops and working with teachers because I know they work and there are many teachers they can collaborate with that are already doing this type of learning.
I’m calling these 10 examples practical because I believe they are doable. They work in most grade levels, in most schools, in most situations. However, as we talked about in a previous post, you and your students are going to have to be the ultimate decision makers on whether or not any of these ideas would work.
1. Let Your Students Design the Learning We all have those assignments, assessments, and units that need some revitalization. Often we toil, thinking about how we can design a project or activity that is going to engage our students and empower them to do amazing work. One time, I didn’t do this. One time, I asked and had a conversation with my students about the final assessment. And that one time turned into one of the most innovative projects I’ve ever been a part of: Project Global Inform. You see, when I brought my students into the actual “designing” process they took an enormous amount of ownership in how we would structure this final project, how we would grade this final project, and what the expectations were from them. Give your students a chance to design the learning with you and watch what can happen.
2. Run a Student-Led Edcamp In 2014 I read about Jason Seliskar running an “Elementary Unconference” as an Edcamp for his 4th grade students. It was fantastic. Thes students create their own learning boards (just like in Edcamp), schedule for the day/class, and then become experts and learners in each other’s session. Since then I’ve seen a number of schools and teachers run student-led edcamps (here is one at a MS) with great success. Why does it work? For the same reason Edcamp works for us teachers: They own the learning and experience.
3. Collaborate Globally I’ve written about this before. Participating in my first Global project (Flat Classroom Project) with my students changed me as a teacher and my perspective of what types of learning experiences we can have “in school” with our students. Now there are many different global collaboration/learning experiences you can take part in. Whether it is joining up for the Global Read Aloud, setting up a Mystery Skype callwith another class, or taking part in the first-ever Global Day of Design, your students can have the opportunity to work and learn with peers from around the world.
4. Maker Projects and Design Thinking Challenges Get your students making, creating, designing, building, and solving problems together with a Maker Project or Design Thinking Challenge. Check out the GlobalDayOfDesign.com for free ideas and Maker Projects to get started.
5. Genius Hour and 20% Time I get messages from teachers every day that have taken my free course on Genius Hour and 20% Time or read my book that are so excited about the work their students are doing. Genius Hour and 20% Time empowers students to go into a depth around a topic that they are curious about. They learn, research, document, and share their process with the world. This eventually turns into a time to create (based on what they have learned) and then present with their peers and much larger authentic audience. Giving students choice to learn and create based on their interests is one of the best ways to create the conditions for innovative work.
6. Class Challenge (Do It Together!) When I taught 11th grade English one of the best experiences was collaborating with my g